(WISCONSIN) — Today, ahead of Mike Pence and Donald Trump’s visits to Wisconsin this week, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler, Oconomowoc Alderman and IBEW 494 Political Director John Zapfel, and Bounce Milwaukee Owners Becky and Ryan Clancy held a video press call highlighting the Trump administration’s hypocrisy on religious freedom, how they have destroyed Wisconsin’s economy and relentlessly attacked Wisconsin’s health care during a pandemic. The Trump-Pence administration has already crushed Wisconsin’s farmers, manufacturers, and working class families long before coronavirus came to the United States, and their response in handling the pandemic has now led to 12% unemployment in the Badger state.

Watch the full event here or read excerpts of their remarks below.

DPW Chairman Ben Wikler: “Mike Pence as the failed governor of Indiana saw one of the biggest outbreaks of H.I.V. AIDS in recent history. And now in the White House he has joined President Trump in failing every possible test of leadership when it comes to COVID-19 and helped allow the COVID-19 epidemic to crush the booming economy that the Obama-Biden administration handed them…Wisconsin, thanks to the Pence-Trump Team, even before COVID-19 hit, lost manufacturing jobs, [with] hundreds and hundreds of dairy farms closing every year in Wisconsin under the misleadership of President Trump and Vice President Pence.”

Oconomowoc Alderman and Political Director for IBEW 494 John Zapfel: “The livelihoods of so many of our brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, and family members disappeared — and it didn’t have to be this way. We know if Trump had taken it [COVID-19] seriously — if Pence had led the task force with clear eyes rather than reality to a president more concerned with his appearance then American lives, we wouldn’t be in this mess today. Four more years is something we can’t afford — and that’s why we need to elect Joe Biden to become the president of the United States.”

Bounce Milwaukee Owners Becky and Ryan Clancy: “Our story about our business surviving the COVID-19 pandemic is not even close to over  just like the pandemic itself is not over — we don’t know how this is going to end. Right now there’s a 12% unemployment rate and we’re seeing so many businesses having to close their doors forever…The federal response has been so unpredictable and so broken. What we need is leadership that we can count on and that we can depend on in times of crisis and we don’t have that now…While Trump is bailing out these big corporations he doesn’t care about businesses like ours — they don’t mean anything to him. We’re excited to be voting him out in November.”

###

Print Friendly, PDF & Email